Strikes have been very much to the fore in recent weeks - not least with all-out action by Britain’s university lecturers having only narrowly been avoided.
In this article, Robert Taylor looks back to the General Strike of 1926, a seminal moment in British industrial history, but one, he argues, that ultimately did little to change entrenched class and social divisions.
The so-called General Strike of May 1926 was the largest industrial conflict in British history. What happened over the nine days of its life still remains a subject of controversy among social scientists and historians, and there are still plenty of issues raised by the Strike and by the prolonged miners' lockout that followed that require further investigation and appraisal.
Britain's secret state certainly took very seriously what it perceived to be a real threat to national security, and its use of regular monitoring - through phone taps, the opening of mail and the use of personal surveillance - suggests the security organisations suspected the Strike was a Communist-inspired conspiracy, designed to overthrow British capitalism.
While the flow of clandestine information into Downing Street may have helped stiffen the resolve of Conservative Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin to face down the trade unions' challenge to the authority of the state, any accounts of Soviet agents penetrating the Mineworkers' Federation and other trade unions need to be treated with scepticism. It is true that the Soviet Union provided financial support for the miners during their lock-out, but this does not mean that the Kremlin manipulated, let alone controlled, the course of the General Strike.
But even if the General Strike was not a Soviet-inspired plot to overthrow the British state, it exposed many truths about the country's vulnerable society and political economy.
Even the unpublished sections of the 1925-1926 diaries of Walter Citrine, who was about to become General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), provide no evidence of Communist influence over events. Citrine became a staunch anti-Communist during the twenty years he ran the TUC from 1926, and he was not the type of man to be susceptible to any Soviet influence. Nor were his colleagues on the TUC General Council. Even Arthur Cook, the fiery General Secretary of the Miners' Federation who was demonised in the media as a subversive threat could hardly be described as a Communist agent.
But even if the General Strike was not a Soviet-inspired plot to overthrow the British state, it exposed many truths about the country's vulnerable society and political economy. First and foremost, it revealed the existence of a strong central state ready to crush those in the Labour Movement who wished to use the strike as a weapon to further their political objectives.
One popular myth to emerge from the events of May 1926 was that Baldwin, the pipe-smoking 'one nation' Conservative Prime Minister, sought conciliation and resisted confrontation until he could see no alternative to tough action. However, the evidence fails to support. On the contrary, Baldwin threw his authority behind the cause of the coal-owners, and their determination to cut wages and lengthen working hours in order to remain competitive. Indeed, the Prime Minister actually rejected compromises that would have involved more state subsidies for the coal industry. Like many others, he saw the General Strike as a clear threat to the constitution and to parliamentary democracy.
Baldwin was also determined to control the means of mass communication so that the general public were prevented from hearing or reading the views of the TUC and the Labour Movement. Government control of the BBC - a public authority - was particularly pervasive. Lord Reith, the BBC's austere first Director, was outwardly keen to uphold the independence and impartiality of the corporation from any state intrusion. But the evidence suggests he was more than willing to prevent any views that were contrary to those of the Baldwin Government from being aired on the BBC.
During the General Strike, Reith refused to allow Ramsay Macdonald, the Labour Leader of the Opposition, to have any right of reply on the radio to the Prime Minister, and he even stopped the Archbishop of Canterbury from broadcasting a public appeal for compromise and reconciliation. On both occasions he reached his decision after close consultation with Downing Street.
In his official history of the BBC, Lord Asa Briggs described Reith's behaviour as marking 'the low water mark of the power and influence' of the corporation. But it was stark evidence of the ruthless determination of the Baldwin Government to defeat the TUC and the miners, even if this meant restricting the freedom of the media.
Other recent research provides a wider perspective of events. During the 1920s, many mine owners struggled to stay in business following the Government's decision in 1925 to return to the Gold Standard at too high a rate of parity with the pound. This raised coal prices and imposed financial constraints on pit owners. Public ownership of the coal industry may have been out of the question, despite demands from the Miners' Federation (following the 1920 Sankey Commission recommendations). Nevertheless, a more active state initiative might have been able to reconcile the more modernising owners with pragmatic union leaders.
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